Naturally, not everything that gets made in a cell is as innocent as you see in these pictures. "I'd, unfortunately, say one of the most common items to craft in a prison is a shank, [probably] due to how easy it is and the inadequate system of rehabilitating prisoners," a representative of this subreddit's moderator team told Bored Panda. "Many of them stick to crime or violence while inside of prison."

"Zip guns utilizing .22 ammunition are also popular because [the rounds] are easy to sneak in. Not to mention the fact that when you break down a gun to its bare bones, it's a simple machine that's quite easy to replicate."

However, we decided to leave guns out of the equation. We already know about them, plus there's so much more! "I [also] see a lot are tiny figures or artworks made of what is practically trash," the person running the subreddit added. "It allows prisoners to express their creative intentions while locked up."

Interestingly, in 2019, the U.S. incarceration rate fell to its lowest level since 1995, according to recently published data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the statistical arm of the Department of Justice. (It is not yet clear how the coronavirus pandemic may have affected these numbers as statistics for 2020 are not expected to be released until later this year.) But despite this downward trend, the United States still puts more people behind bars than any other country for which such data is available. 

The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,833 state prisons, 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in U.S. territories.

The moderator of r/PrisonWallet who took their time to reply to us considers the subreddit's community pretty diverse in their background and intention of joining. "I've talked to members who are former police officers, former prisoners, some interested in the craftsmanship of the people stripped of their freedom, some similar to me in the way I greatly care about prison system reform."

If you took a look at the subreddit's newest posts, you wouldn't see many. The latest one goes back 21 days. However, members are still engaging with them. "The community is somewhat active but ... and you can even notice older posts getting comments, showing new members are fairly common as well!" Maybe you want to be one of them?